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WORKERS CAPITALISTS OR SOCIALIST COMMODITIES?
Assuming that the Bullock proposal is functional, that it would not involve "betrayal", and that it would make further working class development possible, there are two grounds for objecting to it:
1) it would disorientate the trade unions by involving them in activity for which they were not established and which would be in conflict with their proper activity;
2) it would enmesh the workers in the running of capitalism, which is not to be tolerated. The CPGB makes the second point in its evidence to Bullock.
It is just ten years since the B&ICO took issue with the new theories of commodity socialism, of socialism as an even more generalised form of commodity production than capitalism, which were being propagated by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The CPGB defended these theories and declared the B&ICO criticism to be dogmatic. The B&ICO demonstrated quite conclusively that, whether commodity socialism was possible or not, it was assumed as a self-evident truth by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin that a generalised system of commodity production could only be capitalist, and that a socialist economy could not be based on commodity production.
The CPGB declared that generalised commodity production was only capitalist if labour power was a commodity within it; that generalised commodity production was possible in which labour power was not a commodity; and that labour-power was not necessarily a commodity merely because it was generally exchanged against wages. At that point the reasoning got rather fuzzy, and the only sense that could be made of it was that labour-power ceased to be a commodity when management was appointed by a state governed by a working class party.
If that was the case, then the evolution of a capitalist economy into a socialist economy was very possible indeed. But that was ground into which the CPGB would not venture. Indeed, ever since the adoption of the British Road To Socialism 25 years ago, the CPGB has held reformist principles from which it has been incapable of deriving realistic and consistent reformist policies.
If socialism cannot be a commodity system, then workers' control in its fullest development will be a working class development within capitalism. But if it can be a commodity system, (and if it can in Russia why can't it in Britain?), then the full development of workers' control will be socialist.
The CPGB has resorted to theoretical pluralism: generalised commodity production can be socialist when one is justifying the revisionist political economy of Liebermann, Ota Sik and Dubcek, but it cannot when one is discussing the possibility of workers' control in Britain.
But whichever view one chooses, it is obvious that substantial working class development is possible within workers' control and that such development is a useful, if not a necessary, preparation for any form of socialism which is not to be "bureaucratic".
A period of workers' control, during which the capitalist is phased out of industry in the way that is most conducive to working class development, is both possible and desirable, even if it is "workers' capitalism".
WAGE BARGAINING v. MANAGEMENT
The argument that the assumption of responsibility for management by trade unions would disrupt the wage bargaining function of trade unions carries more weight than the ideological argument. The functions of management and of wage bargaining undoubtedly conflict with one another. This conflict of functions could be suppressed in the Soviet Union because an entirely new working class was there developing out of the peasantry under the direction of a party which held absolute political power.
Free trade union activity was put an end to by Lenin, who described the unions as "transmission belts" connecting the mass of the workers with the Central Committee, driven by the latter. Trade unions were the means by which the state organised and educated the workers, and supplied welfare services. Wages were fixed by the state. The power of management was dominant within the factory. It was curbed by the state, not by the trade union. If these things had not been done, a capitalist restoration would almost certainly have taken place in the early twenties
The conflict of functions could not possibly be resolved in that manner in Britain, where the trade union is an absolutely independent working class phenomenon. Lenin said that trade unions were necessary in Russia to safeguard the immediate interests of workers, while the socialist state was seeing to long term interests. He said this in a theoretical dispute with Trotsky, while he was ensuring in his practical political activity that the trade unions were made incapable of independent activity. Such contradictions in the case of Stalin are declared to be diabolical hypocrisy and in the case of Lenin are mostly glossed over. His deeds are ignored while his words are praised.
It will be quite unnecessary for any politician to say such a thing in Britain, where the trade unions are more soundly based and more independently active than any political party. The danger here will not be in the subordination of wage bargaining to management, but in the subordination of management to wage bargaining.
Management today is ineffectually capitalist. Ineffectual capitalist control of management must be phased out, and workers’ control of management established. If it is not done now, it will be done soon. But whenever it is done, and however it is done, it will bring the conflict between wage-bargaining and management to the fore within the working class.
This conflict might be kept out of the trade unions if separate structures for participation in management were established. But the trade unions will not agree to separate structures. And if they did, the separation would be more formal than real. In one structure the workers would be coping with long term necessities, and in another the very same workers would be pressing for the very last penny they could get at the moment. The conflict is inherent in the situation. It cannot be suppressed, and no advantage is gained by a formal concealment of it. It is better that it should take place as a conflict within the trade union movement than as a conflict between trade unions and "works' councils" or some such thing.
The Bullock proposals would enable a workers' control movement to develop in the way that is most favourable to working class development. Workers who prefer to stick by what they know well and can depend on are perfectly free to continue with a capitalist management.
It is far from likely that there would be a general movement towards workers' control immediately. The working class bears the burden of its destiny very lightly. It is much more widely understood than acknowledged that management is not all fun and games. There is also a certain point in having a capitalist management shielding you from the recognition of necessity. There is something to be said for getting as much as can be got in wages without prejudice to the more Utopian aspects of your world outlook, especially when you know something about what the recognition of necessity involved in Russia. In addition to which, the whole economic climate is now conservative, and even stagnant. The Utopian campaign against Heath, followed by galloping wage inflation and a sense of catastrophe sufficient to make possible the glorified wage freeze called "the social contract", has resulted in widespread apathy and cynicism.
It is likely that companies which include a good many daring spirits would now decide to go for workers' control. It would begin on an experimental basis rather than as a system. It would only develop into a system if the pioneering enterprises made it attractive.
An irresponsible gallop on to Boards, as anticipated by the Confederation of British Industry, is the least likely thing to happen.